Google Says Requests for User Data Rose in Second Half of 2012

Jan. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc., owner of the world’s
most popular Internet-search engine, said requests for user data
rose 2.2 percent in the second half of 2012 as governments
around the globe asked for more personal information.

The requests, which also come from courts, increased to
21,389 from the first six months of last year and have risen
more than 70 percent since 2009, according to a Google
Transparency Report. About 68 percent of the requests in the
U.S. were through subpoenas, which are issued under the
Electronic Communications Privacy Act “and are the easiest to
get because they typically don’t involve judges,” Google said
in a separate blog.

Google, based in Mountain View, California, has come under
increasing pressure to hand over user data in the U.S. and
abroad as more information becomes stored online. The company
complied with such requests, at least in part, 66 percent of the
time in the latest period, down from 67 percent in the six
previous months, according to the report.

“It’s important for people to understand how government
actions affect them,” Google said in the blog post. “We’ll
keep looking for more ways to inform you about government
requests and how we handle them.”

The U.S. made the most user-data requests with 8,438,
followed by India with 2,431 and then France with 1,693 for the
July to December period of last year. The U.S. was No. 1 in the
January to June period as well, followed by India and Brazil.

Google complied the most with the U.S., providing at least
some data for 88 percent of the requests, followed by Singapore
and then Taiwan.